Maximilian Joseph, count von Montgelas de Garnerin, (born Sept. 10, 1759, Munich—died June 14, 1838, Munich) German statesman who developed modern Bavaria.

Montgelas de Garnerin, detail from an engraving by E.C. Hess, 1816

Courtesy of the Staatliche Graphische Sammlung, Munich

The son of a Savoyard nobleman, Montgelas entered the service of Charles II Augustus, duke of Zweibrücken, and was from 1795 closely attached to the latter’s successor, Maximilian IV Joseph, who, on becoming elector of Bavaria in 1799, installed him as prime minister. Montgelas wanted to establish Bavaria as an independent power between Austria and France. The Napoleonic Wars gave him the opportunity to bring Bavaria to France’s side in 1805. While Bavaria’s membership in the second Confederation of the Rhine permitted independent internal administration, the state could not pursue an independent foreign policy. Its troops remained at Napoleon’s disposal, since he was the protector of the confederation. By obstructing the confederation, Montgelas kept a large measure of freedom. But the post-Napoleonic territorial treaties of 1814–16 and Bavaria’s entry against Montgelas’s will into the German Confederation (1815) meant the failure of his project for Bavaria as an effective buffer state.

Montgelas was finance minister from 1803 to 1817. As minister of the interior also from 1807, he produced in 1808 a written constitution for Bavaria. This constitution established the Council of State as the supreme court of appeal for all citizens, abolished serfdom and the nobility’s exemption from taxes, and proclaimed the principle of equality before the law. It also envisaged representative assemblies. In practice, however, it was never wholly applied. Montgelas considered Bavaria not yet ready for representative assemblies: his ideal was a bureaucracy controlled by law. In 1817 he was dismissed from office and took no further part in politics.

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